Happy Friday, friends!
Please enjoy, five little things that made my week.
{This. So happy to feel cool.}
{This kitty. He is so photogenic :)}
{This pasta. A ‘use-whatever-you-have’ type of lunch that turned out delicious.}
{This muffin. Topped peanut butter, banana and honey. Too good.}
{This. We applied!}
Enjoy every moment of your weekend. Talk to you Monday!
What made your week special?
I’ve got another salad combo for you.
Juicy tomatoes.
Creamy avocado.
Salty capers.
Pickled red onions.
And fresh, delicious salmon.
Piled high on a bed of greens.
This salad is amazing. Everything goes so well together. Also great for these warm days. It requires very little cooking and prep work.
In the directions, I tell you how I prepared my salmon for this salad. But you should definitely prepare it your favorite way. If you have a grill, I am sure that would be perfect {dreaming of the day I can have a grill}.
I suggest an oil-based dressing for this salad, but again, use what you love. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Oh, I have to mention! This salad was inspired by a delicious meal we ate the The Tomato Bistro.
Ingredients
*This is for two salads. Double, triple, etc., as you please.
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 avocado, sliced
4 tablespoons capers
1/4 of a red onion, sliced
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil
2 fillets of salmon, whatever size you like to eat
Juice from one half of a lemon
Salt and pepper
Mixed greens (or your favorite lettuce)
First prep your veggies. Cut the grape tomatoes in half. Slice the avocado. Slice 1/4 of a red onion. Place the onion slices in a bowl and completely cover with red wine vinegar. Let this sit while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a pan over medium-high heat. Let the oil get hot and then add the salmon fillets. I cooked mine for about 2 minutes on each side. Once the first side was done, I sprinkled salt and pepper on each fillet, squeezed some lemon juice into the pan over the salmon and then flipped them. I cooked the other side for 2 minutes and squeezed the rest of the lemon juice on the salmon.
To arrange the salad, I would suggest tossing the greens with dressing first. You can do this in a big bowl and then transfer the dressed greens to smaller serving bowls. In each serving bowl, arrange the tomatoes, 1/2 of an avocado, 2 tablespoons capers, one half of the red onions and one fillet of salmon.
Enjoy!
Notes:
– Letting the onion sit in red wine vinegar is sort of a really quick pickling process. It takes the bite out of the onion, makes them soft and almost sweet. You can let the onion soak in the vinegar as long as you want, even overnight!
I again apologize for being a bit absent from the blog this week. A fun weekend with my parents (I did no work) and a majorly failed recipe on Tuesday set me behind.
As a blogger trying to share recipes with all of you, failed ones can be very frustrating. I felt discouraged on Tuesday. I had nothing to share with you on Wednesday. And I thought I would have to continue to play catch-up with posts.
But, I had one bad day. That’s it. The next was great. I developed four recipes on Wednesday, without having to rush. It’s like the food blogging gods were there to help pick me up after my day of discouragement.
Reminder to self: there will be good days and there will be bad days, but the good seem so much more significant than the bad. The bad will disappear, you won’t remember them. The good will stick around. Words to live by for blogging and for life.
Enjoy, five little things that made my week.
{This kitty. For being the best little cuddler.}
{This pasta. For being just so delicious. And for making the best leftovers.}
{This doughnut. Given to me by Ben (Greg’s cousin) at the Headhouse Farmer’s Market. It was from here and undeniably delicious.}
{This. With mom, dad and Greg. And a great surprise from Janet and Eva. We went, we ate, we explored. So much fun. }
{This sugar. I love this picture for some reason. The only good thing to come out of the failed recipe I mentioned above.}
What little things made your week special?
How do you deal with a bad day?
Enjoy your Friday!
*Photoshop photo action credit goes to Whimsical Dreams.
This is my new favorite meal.
My new favorite lunch. It requires very little cooking (I love cooking, but for now, the less heat, the better). It really requires very little work at all.
And this quesadilla tastes special. It’s like I’m eating something from an exciting, new restaurant. I can’t explain it, it just feels special.
Even though I was a bit afraid to, I made this for Greg two nights ago. You see, he is not the biggest fan of cream cheese, sour cream and “other white stuff like that.”
I love cream cheese on a bagel, him not so much. A dollop of sour cream on a fajita? I love it, but not him. When I thought of this quesadilla using cream cheese, I knew I would love it. But I was worried about him.
I decided to give it a try anyway. I didn’t tell him what was in it. I told him to try one bite — if he didn’t like it, I would make him another one, differently.
I watched nervously, as he took that first bite.
He loved it! I could barely believe it.
And then. “Is that sour cream?”
Great..I was hoping he wasn’t going to ask. I should have known better.
“No,” I said.
“What is it?” he asked.
My first response? “I don’t want to tell you!”
But, after a few tries with that answer, and his plea of “C’mon tell me, I said that I like it!” I gave in and told the truth.
I put cream cheese in his quesadilla.
Luckily, it turned out well for both of us. I get to make quesadillas with cream cheese, and we both like eating them.
It does sound like cream cheese in a quesadilla could be overwhelming. But, it is the only cheese I put in this one. It actually feels light compared to other cheese-packed quesadillas you can get at restaurants.
The flavor of this is unbelievable. Crispy asparagus and red onion + the creamy cheese + the flavor punch from the pesto = a tasty combination that will leave you wanting more.
And, I used my cast iron skillet to make these — it was perfect!
Ingredients
*This is what I used to make one quesadilla. It can be very easily doubled, tripled, etc.
1 soft tortilla
5 asparagus stalks
1/4 of a medium red onion
8 chive sprigs
1 1/2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 tablespoons of pesto
Olive oil
Chop the asparagus into 1/2 inch pieces. Thinly slice the onion. In a pan over medium-high heat, add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Once hot, add the onion and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the asparagus, give it a good toss, and cook the veggies for another 5 minutes. While cooking, the pan should be very hot. This way, the veggies get crisp and cook quickly. Once the veggies are done, set them aside.
Place a skillet over medium heat (I used my cast iron and it worked perfectly). Place a tortilla into the hot skillet. Carefully spread the cream cheese on one side of the tortilla. Tear the chives into small pieces and place on top of the cream cheese. Next, spoon the veggies onto the tortilla followed by the pesto.
At this point, your tortilla should be crisp but not burnt. If it is still soft, turn the heat up a bit and let it cook longer. Once done, it should be slightly crispy and crunchy, but able to fold over nicely.
Fold the tortilla in half, making a quesadilla.
Cut in half, and enjoy!
Notes:
– For dinner, I made three of these for Greg and I. I did make them one at a time. Unless you feel confident having several skillets going at once, it is definitely okay to do one at a time.
I didn’t post a week in photos last week. Although, it would have been my longest one to date.
So many little, unexpected things and moments made my week last week. It’s nice now to think of all those things again. It was a week full of a lot of big things, but it is really the little things that I am remembering.
I’d like to go into great detail, but that would be too long of a story. To keep it short, think a graduation card from a complete stranger. A delicious, fun breakfast with my mom at my favorite Indiana eatery (with two refills of coffee and a free capitol roll from the awesome workers). A fun night filled with Mexican food, wine and great conversation with a wonderful friend who I now miss. A relaxing night after a hard day of moving. A trip to the airport to pick up my dad. A happy reunion with Greg at this place, another Western, Pa. favorite. A fun night with family and friends, all together, enjoying being outside. Good beer, wine and food all throughout the week, to celebrate.
I said I would keep it short. But really, that’s just the short list of small, unexpected moments that are still making me happy.
And now, let me show you, five things that made this week happy.
{This lunch. This burger + lettuce + an egg. Yum.}
{This sundae. Best snack/dessert ever.}
{This kitty. Being just a little mischievous, but mostly cute :).}
{This fruit. I find cutting fruit so relaxing lately.}
{This door. My new tiny apartment.}
Enjoy your weekend! I hope that you find many little things that make it special.